Natural Selection 2

I'm sure some of you remember the original Half-Life mod, well it looks like this is getting close to launch. It's looking pretty polished. Surprised they've managed to continue development for this long (at least 3 years) and very little funding from what I've seen.

Blurrrrrbbb

Two Unique Sides

Whether you play as one of the elite marine Frontiersmen or the vicious alien Kharaa, you must use unique strategies and your abilities to win. Marines form persistent squads to find and destroy alien hives. Aliens can choose a wall-running Skulk, pudgy Gorge, flying Lerk, murderous Fade or gigantic Onos that can smash through doors.

Real-time Strategy

Commanders play from overhead to lead their team to victory. Build structures anywhere, collect resources and research upgrades. Marines buy weapons at an Armory or build sentry turrets and siege cannons to assault the enemy. Aliens build upgrade chambers, evolve special abilities and plant traps.

Dynamic Environments

Spreading alien infestation deforms hallways and causes space station power failure, turning off lights and shutting down marine powered structures. Use a flamethrower to clear infestation or weld a bulkhead shut for a last defense. Every game is different.
Unlimited Variations

graphical tools and powerful scripting allow you to create new weapons, scenarios or entirely new games. You'll get all our tools and Lua source code we're using to build NS2. Ongoing automatic updates keep the game fresh by adding new maps, weapons and abilities.

Bit of trouble getting onto servers (lots of 'Unable to establish connection' errors) but it does appear to be a well balanced game. Has the same feel of the original but with lots of improvements.

You do need someone in the commander's seat and with a lot of new players you're likely to enter a match where one or both commanders are either crap or non-existent. Pro tip: If you are the commander and you aren't always placing structures, assigning research, or dropping health/ammo, then you aren't doing it right.

There are a few rookie servers out there, I suggest joining those for your first few games. Marines are gong to be the most familiar to play, so start with them. Then, when you understand the mechanics, give the aliens a go.

I've had a mate playing this for the past two months (around the time of BL2 release).

I was wondering why I'd heard nothing about it, must have been in the beta, he was certainly extolling it's virtues. I mostly didn't listen as he tends to like different types of games to me so feigned interest.

Warning - it has quite a high learning curve. I'd definitely stick with marines for your first few plays and avoid the commanders chair at all costs. A microphone is practically a must but the community is great in helping rookies learn the game so it's not essential.

Had a quick go and was surprised to learn people were actually playing the game properly!

Seemed to mainly consist of standing around while some Cockney told us what we could already see on the map and occassionally shooting a little bug like alien, didnt exactly grab me by the balls, probably need to put more time than Im prepared to do into it though